


Shame

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Fifteen Minute Fic, Gen, POV First Person, Poverty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-27
Updated: 2004-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-20 23:37:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2447255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ron learns what poverty means.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shame

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet was inspired by the 6/20/04 [15minuteficlets](http://15minuteficlets.livejournal.com) word #60. It's an expansion of a one-paragraph character study in [Eden](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2447183), a tiny ficlet about emotional wounds. It is a companion to [Fire](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2447327), which deals with Hermione's feelings about childhood bullying and her role in the war against Voldemort. (It's also a companion piece to [Luxuries](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2447435), which deals with Ginny's reaction to poverty but is unrelated to "Eden" or "Fire.")
> 
> Sarah Peasegood is an original character I invented in [Secrets](http://archiveofourown.org/works/882572/chapters/1699723) and [First You Have To Get There](http://archiveofourown.org/works/546246/chapters/972311) as Ginny's childhood friend who moved away instead of attending Hogwarts; she has never yet appeared on-page.

I think I was six when I realized -- that'd make Fred and George eight, Percy ten, and Bill and Charlie still at Hogwarts. Or maybe I was seven and Bill was Head Boy. I'm not quite sure. It's hard to track time like that when you have five brothers. All I really know is that Ginny was no use yet, and was always off with that bloody Sarah Peasegood anyway, so I spent a lot of time alone.

I'd been out in the back garden, putting out bits of bread for the gnomes and then kicking them -- got a few over the fence, even -- and I came in to get another slice. Mum and Dad were in the kitchen, talking, so I hung in the doorway and listened.

"What could I say, Molly?" asked Dad, leaning on the kitchen table. "Perkins is getting so old he can't remember his glasses are on his face half the time, but Mercer can't fire him because he's Barty Crouch's great-uncle -- and _somebody_ has to catalogue the artifacts."

Mum laid her hands on the table. "I know, Arthur, but couldn't the woman see her way to giving you at least another few Sickles per day to make up for it?"

"Out of what budget?" asked Dad, running his hands through his hair. He sighed and sat down, taking hold of Mum's hands. "Even now, nobody really cares what happens to Muggles. They get bitten by an attacking teapot, and everyone says it's their own fault for not having the magic to charm it to sleep."

Mum tugged her hands free and buried her face in them. "I know, I know. And somebody has to do something, and if no one else will, you will. I know. But Arthur, there's only so much I can bring in with the tutoring. Cedric Diggory will be off to Hogwarts soon enough and then only Sarah Peasegood will be left of the paying students.

"And the gnomes are getting at the potatoes again," she continued, talking into her hands, "and even in the best years there's not much to sell in town. Arthur, even if I save everything I can, I still have to buy thread to alter the boys' old clothes to fit the next one in line, and they eat more and more as they get bigger, and we'll have to get them wands and supplies eventually. Where am I supposed to get the money?"

Dad took a deep breath, like the ones he took before he had to punish us sometimes. "I'll talk to Mercer tomorrow," he said. "I'm sure she'll understand. It'll work out, Molly." He reached across the table and patted her shoulder. "It'll work out."

I left the kitchen then -- didn't really want any more bread, or want to kick any more gnomes. So we were poor. So that was why we were always wearing each other's clothes, and we didn't throw out our table with the wobbly legs, and we kept chickens in our yard that we actually ate now and then. That was why Cedric Diggory's house was bigger than ours, and they had real white lace curtain while ours were ugly brown and ragged at the ends. That was why Sarah Peasegood's family never ran low on Floo powder while we had to keep a careful eye on the jar by the fireplace.

They probably laughed at us, at the way Dad was always working and never got paid as much as Mum thought he ought to be, and the way Mum taught them figures out in the garden while she weeded the carrots. They didn't have to watch their mothers fall to pieces like I'd never thought Mum could. They didn't have to watch their fathers try to pretend everything would be all right.

Well, someday it would be all right. Bill and Charlie were really smart and good at magic, and they'd make lots of money when they left Hogwarts. And I was going to be even better than they were. I'd do something, somehow, and then we'd all be rich.

Mum wouldn't have to work all day in the garden and clean the house and take in neighborhood children to teach. Dad could get lots of other people to help him keep nasty magic things away from Muggles.

And it really would all work out.

I'd make sure of it.


End file.
